Pentagon plans to cut Peshmerga security aid, sources say

Cut would coincide with US troop withdrawal from Iraq on 30 September

Defense Department officials have told Iraqi Kurdish leaders in recent meetings that the Trump administration is not planning to extend the memorandum of understanding, first signed in 2016 and renewed in 2022, that has provided weapons, training and stipends to the Peshmerga, four sources familiar with the matter told the BBC. The BBC spoke to two officials who participated in the talks and two other sources with direct knowledge of the issue; all four sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the details had not been previously reported.

The memorandum of understanding between the Defense Department and the Kurdish Regional Government is set to expire on 30 September — the same day the US and other nations are withdrawing their last remaining troops from Iraq. The withdrawal will formally end the international military campaign against IS, in which the Peshmerga fought alongside coalition troops to end the jihadist group’s control of parts of Iraq and Syria. The sole remaining US military base in Iraq, located in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil, is set to close next month once coalition troops leave.

The Peshmerga, which has approximately 180,000 troops in Iraqi Kurdistan, received $61 million in fiscal year 2026 through the Pentagon’s counter-IS programme. The Defense Department proposed cutting all the group’s security aid in its fiscal year 2027 budget request — arguing that, with IS defeated, the money should now be reallocated — though the spending plan is on hold amid a broader budget battle in Congress. Officials in Iraqi Kurdistan had held out hope that the US would renew the funding through an extension of the deal set to expire in September.

The cutoff would come as Iran has stepped up attacks against the Kurdistan region. According to research compiled from the latest available data by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, Iran and Iranian-backed militias had conducted 158 missile or drone attacks inside Iraqi Kurdistan by late May. The figure is up sharply since President Donald Trump started the war with Tehran, which reached the six-month mark on Friday with no end in sight. Kurdish officials told the BBC they fear the funding cut would create a power vacuum and embolden Iran.

Yerevan Saeed, director of the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace at American University, said the cutoff would amount to a strategic loss. “The US would be cutting off the Kurds, who shed so much blood to help the Americans achieve their goals in Iraq and the wider Middle East,” Saeed said. “This is going to be a big win for Iran, China, and Russia if the Kurds are left so exposed.”

In his second term, Trump has pledged to reduce American foreign entanglements in regions like the Middle East.

The BBC reported that the recent meetings included the White House, Defense and State Departments, with Tom Barrack — a close Trump ally who serves as US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Iraq and Syria — acting as a principal US voice on Iraq.

A final decision on security engagement between the US and Kurdistan is still being reviewed, according to one source familiar with the Pentagon’s thinking. The US is considering ways to maintain some security support in both Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan after the troop withdrawal, the sources said.

In response to questions about security assistance for the Peshmerga, a Pentagon spokesperson referred to a statement summarizing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in July. “The United States, Iraq, and Coalition partners have achieved tremendous success in defeating ISIS and now the Iraqi Security Forces, including the Peshmerga and other Iraqi Kurdistan Region security forces, will lead the fight against terrorists in Iraq,” the statement said.

Both the Kurdish Regional Government and the US State Department declined to comment, the BBC reported.

James Jeffrey, who spearheaded the global coalition against IS in Trump’s first term, said continued funding was warranted by the Peshmerga’s record. “It’s money well spent, as we found out when the Islamic State rolled into northern Iraq,” said Jeffrey, a former US ambassador to Iraq and Turkey in the Obama administration.

Jason Campbell, a former US defense official and expert at the Middle East Institute, said the cutoff would leave the Kurdish force more exposed. “The Peshmerga have been the frontline in the US and international war with ISIS,” Campbell said. “If the US moves forward with this, it’ll make the Kurds perhaps the most vulnerable potential targets of Iran.”

The expiration of the security aid would come less than one year after the US opened its largest consulate in the world, in Irbil. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the $800 million complex last December, Michael Rigas, a senior State Department official, said the consulate was “a testament to the value of the relationship between the United States and the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.”

The cutoff comes as the Trump administration has said publicly it is open to a bilateral security agreement with Iraq. The countries discussed a possible defense pact in the recent meetings, but it remains unclear how the agreement might be structured or what Iraqi Kurdistan’s role might be.

Al-Zaidi, who was elected in May, met Trump at the White House in July, along with Hegseth and members of Congress. “October 1 will mark a new day in the trajectory of the Iraqi state, as Iraq will be free of any foreign military presence,” al-Zaidi’s office said in a statement at the time.

The US has not disclosed how many American troops brought in to fight IS more than a decade ago remain in Iraq. Experts believe the figure is under 1,000, down from 170,000 at the height of the Iraq War.